Sponge Project Blog ~ Web design in Tewkesbury

What seems like another obligatory “what I plan to do this year” blog post to add to the webosphere, but what the hey. So here’s my list of things to do in 2009:

1. Get Broadband back at home - it’s like losing an arm! Damn you BT. This is stopping me doing loads of stuff.
2. Fix the Tirlebrook website and claim some money back on their behalf from the stupid hosting company.
3. Download and install Wordpress 2.7.
4. Promote Sponge Project more - get my name about in Tewkesbury and Cheltenham for web design and email design.
5. Do more side projects and maximise revenue from existing ones.
6. Build website themes/templates.

The legendary Malarkey (aka Andy Clarke), has published an incredibly useful client focussed copy style guide.

Professionally written web copy is a very good idea for a website, however the reality is that many clients cannot afford to pay for a professional copywriter and so do it themselves. Which isn’t always a bad thing as they know their business better than anyone. Andy’s guide is aimed at clients who want to write their own copy and offers some guidance as to the best approach to take:

Avoid using abbreviated ‘and’ (‘&’) (an ampersand as it is properly known), as if you do your pages will not validate. Although breaking validation will not make the world fall apart, being valid is a mark of a professional web site. So you should strive for it as hard as possible. Ampersands are more acceptable in headings. If you really, really must use an ampersand, you must write it as &.

Do not type words in all uppercase letters. Just don’t. All uppercase words are bad for accessibility (a screen-reader reads each letter separately, not as a word) and are harder to read. They look, well, just plain unprofessional too.

Do not use exclamation marks (!) except, if absolutely necessary, in headings or for branding purposes. Exclamation points cheapen your content rather than enhance it and you should make your point effective by what you write. You should not need to use an exclamation point.

Choose your capitalization case carefully and stick to it. This is particularly important in headings. So choose to use sentence-case or title-case and then stick to your decision. I find that sentence-case is easier to read and easier on the eye. It is also less formal and friendlier in tone.

Avoid using numerals in your sentences as they make text harder and slower to read on screen. Instead of writing Our course lasts for 3 days… use the word ‘three’ instead. Reserve numerals for dates and prices and other numeric data.

Avoid referring to yourself in the third-person. So don’t say things like [Stuff and Nonsense] are leaders in…. Instead refer to yourself and your company as ‘we’. We provide…, we love… etc. This makes you sound more personal and approachable.

Avoid referring to your customers as our customers, instead refer to you. For example instead of writing [Stuff and Nonsense] provide their customers with the best experience…, say instead We provide you with the best experience… or possibly At [Stuff and Nonsense] we provide you with the best experience….

While SEO is important to get visitors to your site through search-engines, it is also important to give them the best reading experience when they arrive. Keep your copy short and focussed. Keep repetition to a minimum, particularly of your company name. Above all, keep your copy short, content-rich and free from hard-sell or marketing speak.

Avoid confusing the issue. Try not to put too much or too varied information on a single page. If you do have a large amount of copy, break up that content into easily scannable sections through the use of headings and lists.

Keep your use of links focussed on the important calls to action. For example, if your page contains ten links and only one goes to the booking page, the visual importance of that booking link will be reduced. Try to avoid diluting your calls to action.

Good web copy is an essential part of making a website a success, just as much as the technical implementation and the marketing/promotion of it.

Merry Xmas from Sponge Project to all customers.

Frankly amazing bit of kit called the Multicolr Search Lab that returns a series of Flickr images that match your colour choice. Either pick from the list on the right or add the HEX code to the url. Genius! Now all someone needs to do is build one that allows you to search on image size/resolution and I’ll be a happy bunny.

Multicolr Search Lab

When times get tough and we enter a recession, a company’s usual knee jerk reaction is to start laying people off, particularly sales or marketing staff. At times like this however that is the last thing you should be doing. Instead try to think about the rest of your cost base. To help get that thinking started I’ve pulled together a list of free tools that should help manage your costs, there’s also a few non-technology tips that should be considered.

Email and communication

Google Apps: this allows you to move your email, instant messaging and document sharing/Intranet to Google’s infrastructure. For free. Think about that for a second. You get a piece of the infrastructure that powers the world’s leading search engine…for nothing other than the setup time. Staff and colleagues can access email, chat to other colleagues, create and use a truly collaborative intranet or share documents from any machine, anywhere in the world. Did I mention it’s free?

Website

Pay as you go (PAYG) hosting: whilst fixed price contracts give you a very clear cost, sometimes they come with caveats. Things like maximum usage or storage or limited support. Instead try thinking another way and opt for a PAYG model. I use Nearly Free Speech for hosting on this website and News for Tewkesbury. This allows me to clearly monitor my usage and only pay for what I actually use. So if my traffic drops off, so do my costs. Also there are plenty of reasonably priced hosting firms around which may save you money, for example NuBlue.

Content management: even in this day and age, many firms are paying a monthly retainer to a web designer or developer to cover activity other than hosting or the domain name. In many cases people are paying for the Content Management System (CMS) or for someone to manage the content on their behalf. Consider therefore looking at free options for your CMS. I recommend Wordpress, which is one of the most flexible CMSs around (it powers this website as it happens). If you are paying for someone to write or manage the content for you consider taking this in-house. Not only will this save you money, but it will also give your site that personal touch, but make sure you proof-read it!

Document production

OpenOffice: a perennial favourite, but OpenOffice is the de facto free, open source alternative to other “leading” document production software. Don’t be put off by the open source label. This just means that there’s a strong community that sits underneath the product that helps to develop, fix and maintain the software on an ongoing basis. It resides on your machine and can be installed on as many others as you like.

Google Docs: again the mighty “G” turns up trumps with their document production offering. The key difference here though is that it’s online, so you need a good, reliable internet connection. The big plus for having everything online is you don’t need to worry about backup or disaster recovery. On top of that you get the ubiquitous sharing and collaboration function thrown in. This can also be made available from your Google Apps account as mentioned above.

Non-tech bonus

Advertise: sounds strange I know, but according to academic studies cited in Practical eCommerce:

…The study found that by 1985 sales…had risen 256 percent over their ad-cutting competitors and peers…Those companies that advertised during the recession were better performing both during and after the economic downturn…

Conclusion

So 5 top tips and tools to help in a recession, some of which will help manage costs, others will help drive sales - the combination of both should help any organisation ride the storm.

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.